Putting on Christ: The Christian’s Proper Attire
Colossians 3:12–14
© Mike Riccardi
Introduction
Please open your Bibles to Colossians chapter 3, and follow along with me, as I read our text for this evening. Colossians chapter 3, verses 12 to 14. “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.”
Well, we are just over two months away from celebrating the seventieth anniversary of Grace Community Church. It is amazing, truly, to reflect upon all the Lord has done as He has built His church in this place, for seventy years. I’ve only been around for seventeen of those years. In some ways that feels like a long time, but I recognize how much I stand on the shoulders of the faithful men and women who poured their lives into this church—into caring for one another, into preaching and teaching and practicing the Word of God—so that I, like so many of us, reap innumerable blessings that were sown by others in faith.
One of the cool things about being here for a long time but not the whole time is the stories that get told about the history of Grace Church. There’s something like a Grace Community Church lore, and the stories are certainly fun to hear about. I remember hearing a story—I think it was back in the 70s—about an elder who had come to church one Sunday without a tie. Now, of course, there’s nothing in Scripture that prescribes elders to wear ties to church. But you’ve noticed that that’s sort of the dress code around here: the elders and pastors wear a suit and tie. And I think that’s fitting; we come to gather as the Lord’s people to honor and worship Him as the solemn assembly of His people. There should be a reverence that we show even in our dress.
In any case, I think that was even more understood fifty years ago than it is today. And the story goes that Pastor John, rather than pull that elder aside and say, “Hey, you know, I think it would be good if we didn’t let the standard slip: Please make sure you have your tie on next time”— Instead of saying something like that, Pastor John, rather than offering the closing prayer himself, like he would normally do, called this elder up to the pulpit to close the service in prayer: in the nakedness of his tielessness. And it may or may not be true that that elder now holds the record for the most consecutive services attended at Grace Church while wearing a tie.
I think we all know something of the embarrassment of showing up somewhere in the wrong clothes. We miss the memo for the dress code at work, or at a party, or at a wedding, and we feel awkwardly out of place. There is such a thing as an appropriate dress code. There’s such a thing as proper attire—clothing that is fitting for a particular person on a particular occasion. And as we come to our text from Colossians chapter 3 this evening, we find that the Apostle Paul is making the very same point. Christians need to wear the right clothing—clothes that fit them, attire that is becoming for who they have been remade to be in Christ.
We saw, two weeks ago, in the previous passage, verses 5 to 11, that Paul called us to put aside the deeds of the old man. Especially in verse 8: “But now you also, put them all aside”—a verb that’s often used to speak of taking off one’s clothes. Acts 7:58 says the witnesses of Stephen’s execution “laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.” And so Paul is saying, “Just as a manual laborer would come home at the end of the day, remove his dirty clothes, be washed, and put on clean clothes in their place, now that you are no longer living in the filthiness of sin: put off the filthy garments of your old life.”
Why? Verse 9: “since,” or because, “you laid aside the old self with its evil practices.” The term here is apekdúomai, another word associated with removing clothing. It’s the same word in chapter 2 verse 11 that spoke of “the circumcision made without hands, in the removal”—in the laying aside, the stripping away—“of the body of the flesh.” Paul’s saying, “You ought to strip off the dirty clothes of the old man because the old man himself—that old self that you were in Adam—he has been stripped away from you. It’s simply not fitting for someone who has put off the old man to be wearing the clothes of the old man.” And so in the hour of temptation, we need to fight sin from this gracious foundation: “I can’t wear these deeds! I can’t put on the clothes of the old man! I’ve stripped away the old man and his practices! This isn’t who I am! This isn’t who God has recreated me to be!”
And so, the emphasis in verses 5 to 11 is on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh. We are to put sin to death—to rouse all diligence to oppose, and subdue, and destroy our sin. Two weeks ago I said: Find out what your sins feed upon and starve them. Discover whatever gives them oxygen, and cut those things out of your life, so that sin is suffocated under the weight of the truth and the glory of the promises of God. This is how to walk in Christ in the manner in which you received Him, chapter 2 verse 6. Not by the empty, deceptive, manmade philosophies of legalism, mysticism, and asceticism, verses 8 to 23. But by setting your minds on the things above, chapter 3 verses 1 to 4, which issues in putting to death the sin that remains in us, verses 5 to 11. “Be killing sin,” as Owen said, “or sin will be killing you.”
But as we come to verse 12, we find that a key aspect of this battle of sanctification is not only the mortification of sin, but the vivification of righteousness—not only putting off the evil practices that are the clothing of the old self, but putting on the holy practices that are the clothing of the new man. “As those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on”! Endúo. Just as apekdúomai means to take off clothing, endúo means to put on clothing. Do you understand, friends? The fight for holiness, and sanctification, and maturity in the Christian life will short-circuit—it will be aborted—if all you do is attempt to stop sinning. That is absolutely essential, but it’s only the first step. You must also replace the sinful practices of the old self with the righteous deeds of the new self.
In the parallel passage in Ephesians chapter 4, Paul commands in verse 25 not only that we lay aside falsehood—that we stop lying to one another—but that we speak truth to one another. We are to put off the filthy garments of lying, and put on the holy garments of truth-telling. Then, Ephesians 4:28: “He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.” Not just: stop stealing, but replace the old clothes of stealing with the new clothes of giving generously.
You see? If you want to make progress in the Christian life, you don’t only aim at putting off complaining; you replace your grumbling with thanksgiving to God. Instead of, “Why me, Lord?” it’s, “I praise You, Father, for these difficult circumstances whereby I might put the glory of Christ on display.” If you want to stop using critical, cutting, demeaning words with your spouse, you must replace your harsh speech with words of affirmation, and encouragement, and appreciation. If you want to kill the dragon of lust and sexual immorality, you don’t only put away your fornication and adultery. You put on acts of faithfulness, openness, honesty, and you commit yourself to enjoying intimacy with your husband or wife, keeping yourself only for him, or for her, as long as you both shall live. And if you’re going to put off the clothes of anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy speech, and lying, verses 8 and 9, you’re going to have to put on the clothes of verse 12: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. And that’s the substance of Paul’s point in this passage.
But I need to make one more point before we dive in. This imperative to put on the clothes of the new man comes after the indicatives of verses 9 and 10: “you [have, already] laid aside the old self,” and you “have, [already,] put on the new self,” the new man. And who is that new man? Well, as the old man is who you were in Adam, the new man is who you are in Christ. What are the right clothes for a Christian to wear? Galatians 3:27 says, “For all of you who were baptized into [union with] Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Dear believer: by the sovereign grace of God, you have clothed yourselves with Christ! He is the new man that you have put on! His spotless, pure-white robe of perfect obedience to the very law you’ve broken is laid upon your shoulders, so that the Father looks at you and sees His obedience!
And Paul says, “So,” verse 12: “Therefore.” “Since, dear believer, you are already clothed with Christ Himself, put on the deeds of Christ!” Romans 13:14 says this very thing. Colossians 3 and Galatians 3 give us the indicative—You have put on the new man; you have clothed yourselves with Christ—and Romans 13:14 gives us the imperative: “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” I love that. You have put Him on, so put Him on! Walk in the freedom and in the power that grace has created for you! Become in practice what your kind and gracious God has already made you in position.
And the way that Paul guides us in the fight for holiness in this text is to work through four aspects of the new man, or new self, that we are in Christ, as he calls us to put on the clothing of Christ. Four aspects of the new man as we seek to put on Christ.
I. The Identity of the New Man (v. 12a)
Let’s look, first, at the identity of the new man. Verse 12: “So,” or, “Therefore,” “as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion.” He has already told them that they have put off the old man, and that they have put on the new man—that they have clothed themselves with Christ. But it’s as if he can’t get away from grounding his commands to practical holiness in the reality of their privileged position in Christ. Biblical sanctification—making progress in practical holiness—is fundamentally rooted in the new identity that God has already given us as a gift of His grace.
And he speaks of three marks of that new identity that is the ground for our practical sanctification. First, he says we “have been chosen of God.” Eklektoi. Literally, “as the elect of God.” Do you know, believer, how it is that you came to believe in Jesus? how you came to be united to Him, so as to become clothed with Him? how it came to be that your old man was “crucified with Him,” that your “body of sin might be done away with”? The answer is: before time began, before we had ever done anything good or bad, before any creature had ever existed, God, in the perfect sufficiency of His own being and the infinite fullness of delight between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, determined, in sovereign freedom, to set His love upon you, and choose you, out of the mass of fallen and sinful humanity, to be rescued from your sin, through the saving work of the coming incarnate Son—and on the basis of absolutely nothing about you—that you might be swept up into participation in that perfect sufficiency, and infinite fullness of delight, that exists in the life of the Trinity!
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.” The greatest divine mystery of all is how this Sovereign King, whose glory is exalted above the heavens, could get the consent of His holy nature to lift a finger to rescue a single sinner, whose uncleanness and unworthiness is an infinite stench in the nostrils of perfect holiness. And He needed nothing! He wasn’t lonely! He wasn’t sad! The Father, Son, and Spirit were infinitely happy, basking in the loveliness of each person of the Trinity. And there was nothing in us to commend us to Him; only everything that would repulse Him. And yet, He set His love upon us, and chose us, and entrusted us to the care of His Son, our Mediator, and appointed us, Acts 13:48, to eternal life!
This sovereign election, therefore, makes us holy. “Therefore, as the elect of God, holy, and beloved.” To be holy is to be set apart. When God chose His people to be saved, before the foundation of the world, He chose to set us apart for Himself, to be His special possession. God said of Israel in Deuteronomy 14:2, “For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God, and Yahweh has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” He said in Leviticus 20:26, “I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine.” Well, what’s the consequence? Same verse, Leviticus 20:26: “Thus you shall be holy to Me, for I, Yahweh, am holy, and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine.” It only makes sense that those whom God has set apart unto holiness for Himself would walk in the holiness for which He has set us apart!
And then Paul calls us, “beloved.” “Elect of God, holy, and beloved.” And this is just the pinnacle of sweetness for those of us who know how utterly hateful we are in and of ourselves. Oh, how we deserve to be despised by so holy a Being as God is! And yet, His sovereign choice to save us in eternity past is itself the choice to set His love upon us. Deuteronomy 7:7 identifies Yahweh’s choice of Israel with His setting His love upon them, so that the two are identical. We just read Ephesians 1:4–5 a moment ago: “In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” First Peter 2:9 calls the church “a chosen race, a holy nation, and a people for God’s own possession”—which is to say, His beloved people. Romans 1:7 calls believers those “who are beloved of God,” “called” (or chosen) “as saints.”
Dear Christian, this is your identity! You have been chosen of God. Chosen for what? Ephesians 1:4 again: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.” You have been chosenfor holiness, so walk according to that purpose for which God chose you: to be beautified into Christ’s likeness. You already have been made holy. The holy God of heaven has sanctified you and set you apart for Himself. Therefore, 1 Peter 1:15: “Like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior.” And, dear people, you already are loved. Listen to this good news: You do not have to convince this lovely God to love you! By God’s amazing grace, we do not pursue holiness in order to get into a relationship with God, or to earn God’s love. That’s the worldly philosophy of legalism and moralism that Paul castigated the false teachers for in chapter 2. We don’t try to gain God’s favor by our spiritual performance; that’s the phony holiness of self-righteousness. We have already received His favor before the foundation of the world. “Grace was granted to us,” 2 Timothy 1:9, “from all eternity.” So you see, we fight sin because we have already been chosen. We pursue holiness because we have already been made holy. We imitate our Father in heaven and wear the clothes of our elder Brother, Jesus, because we already are beloved.
Paul knows we need to fight to put on the clothes of the new man in the strength and in the freedom of that Gospel foundation—that I can be victorious over sin, because Christ has already conquered sin in me by virtue of His work on the cross. He will have what He’s paid for! And so we may walk in the freedom of what He has purchased for us.
II. The Attitudes of the New Man (v. 12b)
Such, then, is the identity of the new man. That brings us, in the second place, to the attitudes of the new man. Verse 12 again: “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Here are those principal articles of the Christian’s proper attire—of the believer’s new clothes.
And just like there was a list of five sexual sins in verse 5 and five social sins in verse 8, Paul lists five virtues that the new man is to put on. And he starts with “a heart of compassion.” And literally, the phrase is “bowels of mercy.” The splangchna referred to a man’s bowels, his guts. The culture of the New Testament authors spoke of the bowels as the seat of the emotions—where the affections were felt. And so to “put on bowels of mercy” means to be so moved with compassion that the bowels yearn—that there is such compassion that wells up in a Christian’s heart that he can feel it in his stomach. So far from a heart of anger, wrath, and malice, verse 8—so far from instincts which inflict pain—the new man sees someone in pain and feels that pain right alongside them.
You know, life, in this fallen and sin-cursed world, is hard for many of our brothers and sisters. So many faithful followers of Christ experience a kind of pain that many of us have not yet been acquainted with. And so far from being impatient, or indifferent—so far from telling them to just suck it up and trust God—Scripture calls us, Romans 12:15, to “weep with those who weep,” to sympathize with them, 1 Peter 3:8—that is, to feel along with them the misery that providence has ordered for them; to be tenderhearted (Ephesians 4:32), so that, even if we don’t have the right words to say, we may lay two things at our friends’ disposal: our prayers, and our tears. “Dear brother, I’m so sorry you’ve been afflicted in this way. I wish I could snap my fingers and change everything! But I’m here with you through this.”
After compassion, Paul says we are to put on kindness. One dictionary defines kindness as “goodness of heart” (Liddell-Scott) that desires and pursues the very best for those around us. There is an absence of all harshness from such a person. When someone is kind, there’s a gentleness, an appropriate softness about them. You know that you’re safe with them. They’re endearing, self-effacing, and even encouraging and complimentary. It seems they’re always on everybody’s team! They always seem to be pulling for everybody, and they’re genuinely happy when others succeed, even if it means they’ll be overlooked. So far from a spirit of retaliation, a kind person would rather suffer wrong than inflict wrong—would rather bear offense than cause offense. Matthew Henry said, “A courteous disposition becomes the elect of God; for the design of the gospel is not only to soften the minds of men, but to sweeten them, and to promote friendship among men as well as reconciliation with God.”
Closely related to compassion and kindness is humility. Tapeinophrosune: lowliness of mind. Not a phony self-deprecation that pretends to be humble and flatters others so that they’ll like you, but an honest, sober self-assessment in light of God’s holiness and your sinfulness (Mahaney, 22). How could I think more highly of myself than I ought, and prefer my own interests above others’, when I am so intimately acquainted with how cold my heart can be before the Scriptures? how sluggish I am to enjoy communion with God in prayer? how enamored my flesh remains with sin and temptation?
I love the way John MacArthur put this. He said, “You know more sin about your own heart than you do about anybody else’s, right? So if we’re talking from the level of first-hand information, who is the worst sinner you have ever met? … Who’s got the most corrupt mind you know of?” The answer, for every one of us in this room, is: “Me!” Each one of us knows enough of our own heart to exclaim with integrity alongside the Apostle Paul, “I am the chief of sinners,” 1 Timothy 1:15! “I am the worst sinner I know! because I can’t see the wickedness of your heart, but I can see the wickedness of my own heart!” If you really believe that, you’ll be humble. You won’t be impressed with yourself. You won’t be hurt or offended if your achievements go unrecognized. You won’t insist on your own rights. You’ll do nothing from selfish ambition or vainglory, but you’ll regard one another as more important than yourself.
A fourth attitude of the new man is gentleness. Praütes. It’s often translated as meekness, which is famously defined as “strength under control.” Back in Numbers 12, Aaron and Miriam spoke against Moses, jealously questioning why everyone listened to him to receive the Word of God, rather than listening to them. And rather than respond, Moses bore that criticism meekly, and without a word. Shimei curses King David in 2 Samuel 16. Abishai, David’s servant, says, “I’m going to go cut off his head!” And David says, “Leave him alone. Maybe the Lord has told him to curse me. I’m not above that. And even if not, maybe receiving man’s curses will be the occasion for the Lord to send His own blessings.”
That’s meekness. You can’t insult a meek man, because he’s so acquainted with his own sinfulness that he already has that lowliness of mind that doesn’t take into account a wrong suffered. “You think you can hurt my feelings by calling me names? I sing worse things about myself in the hymns on Sunday!” The great Bible commentator John Gill said meekness consists in “quietly submitting to the will of God in all adverse dispensations of Providence, and patiently bearing what he is pleased to lay on them; and in enduring all the insults, reproaches, and indignities of men with calmness.” Passion, from verse 8, drives men and women into frenzy. But you can’t rile the one who is meek. Matthew Henry wrote a wonderful treatise on meekness, and said “Meekness accommodates the soul to every occurrence, and so makes a man easy to himself and to all [around] him.”
And so closely related to that is patience. Makrothumía—from makro, “big,” or “long,” like our word “macro”; and thúmos, which is the word Paul used for “wrath” in verse 8. This is someone who is “long to wrath,” or long-suffering. If thúmos describes those outbursts of anger that resemble the explosion of a stick of dynamite, makrothumía describes someone whose fuse is really long. Personal offense or insult lights our fuse, at the end of which is that stick of dynamite that explodes into anger and wrath. A patient person has a long fuse, so that well before the dynamite would ever explode, humility and meekness would extinguish the flame, so that we can bear that offense with patience.
First Corinthians 13 begins that love song to the grace of Christian love by saying, “Love is patient.” Literally: “Love suffers long.” Unbelievers with a strong willpower may be able to discipline themselves to bear offenses and insults for a short time. But the new man, recreated in the image of Christ, suffers long.
III. The Actions of the New Man (v. 13)
Well, so much more can be said about the attitudes of the new man, and how compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience manifest themselves in the life of a Christian. But time constrains us to move on, in the thirdplace, to the actions of the new man. The identity and attitudes of the new man come to fruition in the actions of the new man. What do these five virtues issue in? What is the behavioral atmosphere in which these five virtues find expression? Verse 13: “bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.”
Forbearing and forgiving. “Bearing with one another,” translates the verb anéchomai, which means to bear, to endure, or to put up with. In Matthew 17, as Jesus comes down from the Mount of Transfiguration, He finds that the disciples have been unable to cast out a demon from a man’s son. And He says in Matthew 17:17, “You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you?” This is that word. Paul says, “Put up with one another!” He acknowledges that there are going to be people within the body of Christ—and especially within your local church—who will do things that bother you, that rub you the wrong way, that annoy you. And he knows that our inclination is to flee—to find some way to avoid interaction with those people and just shut them out of your heart. And he says, “That’s not how the new man acts!” You put up with those annoyances. You bear with those bothers.
Why? Because, for one thing, we all have something that needs to be put up with, don’t we? You have annoying habits, or weird behaviors, or trying aspects about your personality—deficiencies in character—that you need your brothers and sisters to forbear in you. And so, you must treat them the way you need them to treat you. But then, we bear with one another because of how supremely patiently we have been borne with by God. We, who have so many infirmities to be put up with have been chosen, and made holy, and we are dearly loved by the God of all loveliness, who has nothing in Himself to be put up with! If He has so graciously, and so freely, accepted us in His beloved Son, even while we were yet sinners, and if He puts up with us now, even after we’ve been saved, and yet show such weakness and backwardness as we make such slow progress in grace, how can we who are borne with so gently and kindly by Him, fail to bear with our fellow sinners?
And then, in the case that any of those annoyances or botherings cross the line into sins against one another—such that you have a just complaint against someone—you are to be “forgiving each other…just as the Lord forgave you.” Paul assumes that there are going to be instances in which members of the same local church have just cause for complaint against someone. Christians sin against each other. But here’s the prescription for such a scenario: when there’s no sin involved, we forbear. When there is sin against us, we are to forgive.
This is a lesson that we all need to learn, Grace Church. These are clothes that we have to put on. This very moment marriages are suffering because of a refusal to wear the clothing of forbearance and forgiveness. Marriage is a picture of the Gospel—of Christ, the bridegroom, who lays down His life for His bride, the Church, who eagerly submits to and joyfully respects Him. And that picture of the Gospel that marriage is designed to be is being muddied by some of you—so that the Lord Jesus is robbed of the glory He deserves in your marriage—because you refuse to forgive and forbear. And not just marriages, but entire families are torn apart, because some simply cannot abide what they perceive to be a pattern of sins committed against them, and they refuse to pursue reconciliation by forgiving as they have been forgiven. Men and women, who could be so useful in ministry, are hampered and hindered and handcuffed by a critical, fault-finding, unforgiving spirit. And the result is that the Lord is robbed of the glory He deserves in the proper working of His church.
And so we need to learn the lesson of biblical forgiveness—and not just to learn the theory but to learn to practice it. Peter says, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus responds, Matthew 18:22: “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” Which does not mean: count the 490 offenses, and unleash fury on 491! The point is: for Jesus’ followers, forgiveness doesn’t have a limit, because, 1 Corinthians 13:5, “love keeps no record of wrongs.” Love doesn’t keep score. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” And so love forbears and forgives.
The principle that must take root in the soil of every Christian’s heart is that where there is repentance, there is forgiveness. Where there is the seeking of forgiveness, there is the granting of forgiveness. It simply cannot be that a brother or sister in Christ sincerely seeks our forgiveness and we refuse. When a brother or sister repents, Christians forgive. We are to be extravagant, lavish forgivers. And why is that? Because we have been extravagantly, lavishly forgiven! Look at verse 13 again: “forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also [must] you.” The weight of those words needs to land on us. We are to be a lavishly forgivingpeople, because we are a lavishly forgiven people.
We need to be freshly affected by the weight of our own sin—by the sheer magnitude of the debt we owe to God for the offenses we have committed against His holiness. And we need to be ravished by the scandalous mercy—by the free grace and boundless compassion of the forgiveness we have received from God through Christ. And we need to compare the mountain of our own sin against God, which has been freely forgiven, to the molehills of offenses that even our fellow-Christians commit against us, and we need to bend out the very mercy we have received to them in forgiveness.
If Almighty God—who dwells in unapproachable light, who is Light and in whom is no darkness at all, who is of purer eyes than to look upon evil, who is justly repulsed at all unrighteousness, who is the God of all holiness—if He can put away my sin for the sake of Christ, how can I, a creature of the dust, who should have been suffering in the torments of hell for years already, refuse to put away the sins of those who seek my forgiveness?
IV. The Apex of the New Man (v. 14)
Well, that brings us to a fourth aspect of the new man. We’ve seen the identity of the new man: he is already chosen, holy, and beloved. We’ve seen the attitudes of the new man: compassionate, kind, humble, meek, and patient. And we’ve seen the actions of the new man: forgiving of sin and forbearing of faults. Now we come to the apex of the new man—the apex of the new man, in verse 14: “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.”
Literally, “upon all these, love.” That is, upon, or over all these other garments, put love over and upon all of them. Why? Because love is the supreme virtue of the new man—the crowning grace of the Christian’s clothing, that binds all the other virtues together in perfect unity (Bruce, 155). In one sense it acts like a belt that holds the Christian’s attire all in place (MacArthur, 157). If all the other virtues appear to be operational in some form, but love is absent, everything else is a show of hypocrisy and legalism. What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 13? “If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, if I have all knowledge and faith to move mountains, if I give all my possessions to the poor and die a martyr’s death, burned at the stake, and at the same time I do not have love, I am nothing.”
One commentator calls love, “the root, parent, and [master]…of these as [well] as all other virtues” (Davenant, 2:118). Paul himself lists love first in the list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,” and so on. Just a few verses earlier, in Galatians 5:14, he says, “The whole Law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Why? Romans 13:10: “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” Dear people, do you love the brethren? Do you love the people in your Bible study? in your fellowship group? Do you love your elders, and pastors, and teachers, and shepherds? Husband, do you love your wife? Wife, do you love your husband? Parents, do you love your children? If you do, you’ll be compassionate, and kind, and humble, and gentle, and patient, and forbearing, and forgiving.
Conclusion
And if you don’t love, if you are not compassionate, if you are unkind, if you are proud and arrogant, if you are not meek and gentle, if you are impatient, if you struggle to forbear and forgive—whether you’re a believer or an unbeliever, the message is the same. And that is: Look to Christ! Look to Christ! Jesus is the perfect embodiment of every one of these virtues! He Himself is the new man that we are to put on. Remember? “Put on Christ and make no provision for the flesh.”
Is there any compassion in the universe, like our Savior’s compassion, who was deeply moved in spirit, and wept with the sisters at Lazarus’s tomb; who looks out at the crowd, distressed and dispirited, and says, “Oh, they’re like sheep without a shepherd,” and He felt compassion for them; who has compassion on the unclean leper, the outcast who begs Him to cleanse him from his shame, if He be willing. And Jesus touches the untouchable, and says, “I am willing; be cleansed!” Is there any kindness like the kindness of Jesus? Is there anyone as good-hearted as He is? anyone whose heart leaps for joy at your growth in grace like His heart does? anyone who is as gentle with you in your failures, and as quick to receive you when you repent?
Could anyone claim a greater humility—a greater lowliness of mind—than the One who was willing to go from the highest of the heights of heaven, to the lowest depths of hell? from the unhindered worship of the saints and angels, to take on the flesh of a creature? to be mocked and spit upon, to be beaten and crucified, and finally to be forsaken—not only by men in His greatest hour of trial, but also forsaken of God, His dear Father, as He bore the sin and guilt of His people?
This Savior was the picture of meekness, and gentleness. “Behold, your King is coming to you gentle,” mounted on a beast of burden. When Paul looks for the quintessence of meekness, he says in 2 Corinthians 10:1, “I urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.” Jesus Himself says, “My yoke is easy. My burden is light. I’ll give your soul the rest it needs. For I am gentle and humble in heart.” And O, the patience of Christ! Who can tell of it? You who knowwhat your sins are before the face of the Christ who suffered the wrath of God for them, who sin against Him still daily. And how He receives you! How He welcomes you back! Who was ever patient, like our Christ is patient with us? We say with Paul in 1 Timothy 1:16, “I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost [of sinners], Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience.”
Forbearance? He was called a glutton, a drunkard, insane, demon-possessed, a deceiver, and worthy of death. And when reviled He did not revile in return. He gave His back to those who strike, Isaiah 50. He says, “I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting.” What can’t you bear, from your fellow sinners, if your sinless Savior bore that for you?
And the forgiveness of Christ! Almost like a theme song of His ministry: To the paralytic, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you” (Luke 5:20). To the immoral woman weeping at His feet, “Your sins have been forgiven” (Luke 7:48). To the one caught in adultery, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you? Then neither do I condemn you.” “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him” (Matt 12:32). “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28). As He hangs on the cross: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34).
Dear people: If you lack the resolve to put on Christ and the clothing of the new man, look to Christ. Behold in Him, not only the perfect pattern and example for all these virtues, but behold in Him the glory of all these virtues perfectly practiced—the loveliness of the most wonderful Man there has ever been! See beauty in this Christ, accomplishing for you the very righteousness He commands of you, and gives you as a gift of His free grace! O, there is strength in that sight of Christ! There is spiritual power that flows from a heart that falls in love with the beauty of holiness!
If you’re outside of Christ, look to Him in faith this evening. Put all your trust for righteousness upon Him alone. If you’re in Christ, look to Him in faith this evening. Trust that there is more joy in wearing Him as your clothing than in all the filthy rags of sin. Dear believer, you have been chosen, you are holy, and you’re loved by the loveliest Being in the universe. So put on love.